The superintendent of Louis Riel School Division worries in-class learning may be unsustainable as the third wave of COVID-19 continues to push more schools into remote learning.
College Jeanne-Sauve and Lavallee School will go remote starting Monday, making it three schools in the division now learning from home.
Ecole Marie-Anne Gaboury moved to remote learning on April 26.
“I have concern for the impact the third wave is having on our education system,” LRSD superintendent Christian Michalik said in a letter sent to families.
“The growing proportion of students learning from home due to self-isolation requirements while still having students learning in brick-and-mortar classrooms may become unsustainable.”
Michalik says the decision to move the two additional schools to remote learning is not only because of growing case numbers, but the number of families opting to keep their kids home and the growing inability to fill the increasing number of staff absences.
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He said on Friday, there were 428 staff absences across the division with 111 of those unfilled.
The Manitoba Teachers’ Society (MTS) put out a call Thursday for all schools to be moved to the red, or critical, level on the province’s Pandemic Response System.
Premier Brian Pallister says the province is doing everything it can to keep kids in school.
“For many people, they need the structure of a classroom and they need direct contact with an educator or a teacher,” said Pallister Thursday. “When we talk about a circuit-breaker, I can’t help but think that break might be the break in the relationship between a teacher and a student, and we don’t want that to happen.”
The latest numbers on the province’s dashboard shows there have been 416 cases in Manitoba schools in the last two weeks, with 171 of those being variant of concern cases.
